It was not at all as quick as I had hoped. As soon as I had returned to my family I was greeted with (once again) looks of annoyance and I may have been wearing my own annoyed look. Being dragged away from Scorpius was enough to make me not give any hippogriffs about what the other members of the wedding party thought.
I was shoved into a dressing room that was about the size of a shoe box. It was claustrophobic, I was boxed in by heavy turquoise curtains with gold trimmings lining the bottoms that I kept stepping on. The shop assistant slid the front curtain, that acted as a door, shut. It hissed along it's railing. In front of the back curtain suspended in mid-air by a levitation charm, the hideous bridesmaid's dress hung.
"Rose?" Lily in the dressing room next to me wasted no time to whisper. "Tell me about him."
My attention turned from the dress to the curtain dividing the dressing rooms. I leant as close as I could to it and whispered back,
"There's nothing to tell. Please don't say anything someone might hear."
My worst fear at that moment was the conversation could be heard by everyone outside by some miracle over the wizard pop music filling the store and the chatter already happening outside.
"Rosie, I'm not blind," Lily whispered back. "And I'm not stupid. Everyone else is so I will not mention 'you know who' to anyone. But promise on the life of your wand that we will eat ice cream and talk about this later."
Eating ice cream with Lily sounded nice but talking to her when she had the wrong impression and wasn't dropping that impression sounded like a chore and a workout, even more of a workout than climbing up all those stairs at Hogwarts. I had no choice but to agree and hopefully, shut her up.
"Yeah, I swear," I whispered back.
"Great," She replied. "Now to the less important matter on hand. This dress."
I could hear through the curtain the crinkle of the dress fabric in Lily's dressing room. I had forgotten about the demon floating next to me. I sighed and braced myself for the worst. I grabbed the dress which made an identical crinkling sound to the one Lily's made.
Dominique was right, it was itchy. She was lucky. I would jump at going to Knockturn Alley, with Scorpius or anywhere hopefully with Scorpius. Against my skin, it felt like irritating wool. How? I do not know. I had to admit it was one of the ugliest dresses I had ever seen but it did look slightly, minusculely better on.
When I pushed back the curtain ready to show everyone Lily was already out there standing on the platform pulling at the hem of her dress with one hand and had the other pointed at it firmly while the seamstress witch looked at Victoire with an expression that read 'who is this tiny person?'.
The dress was heavy and walking in it was less than comfortable. By the time I joined Lily on the platform she had already moved onto something else. She had gotten a gold ribbon from out of nowhere and was attempting to wrap it around her waist in various different fashions and styles.
"Victoire, sashes are all the rage right now. Last week in Witch Weekly Harriette Took was wearing a gold sash around the waist of her dress at the Snow Event. It was magnificent and she was stunning as always, but I think we need to take a lesson from Harriette Took and draw the eye to something gold. After all, it's on my top ten favourite list of colours."
"I…" Victoire started waving her hand at the gold ribbon at a loss for words. "It's not in the plan and it goes against the colour scheme. Teddy and I will be wearing gold. Everyone else will be wearing green and red in the tradition of Christmas."
"Which means the gold sashes will show a connection to the bride and groom." Lily started up again snapping her fingers missing Victoire's tone entirely. "Isn't it a great idea! Why didn't we think of that before?"
"Perhaps Lily is right." intervented Aunt Fleur. "Ze green and red are… tacky. Gold, silver, white and black are ze perfect colours."
Victoire shut her eyes and took in a deep breath, "I have spent months planning this and going over every option. Green and red are what I want."
Lily moved on to trying to shape the ribbon to the top part of her dress. She nodded to me beside her on the platform, "This is cute. Let me see this in the mirror."
The seamstress witch was already picking at the ends of my dress with her wand, stretching and pulling as her fingers went along. Lily hopped down off the platform and headed to one of the mirrors positioned around the fitting area to get a closer look. There were about eight mirrors, long with thick black frames, positioned in a circle around the fitting area with spacing in between each one to make room for clothes racks or furniture.
I could see my reflection out of the corner of my eye in one. Well, I could see the dress, the rest of me was a blur next to the frills and colours.
"You look beautiful, Rosie." Grandma Molly said with an encouraging smile from her place on one of the couches. She was still knitting as she said this. She was after making some serious progress on Albus' Weasley jumper. The comment came genuine, Grandma Molly loved patterns of mismatched colours and knits. She thought the Christmas theme was darling and suggested it to Victoire which made things with Aunt Fleur even tenser.
I always thought Victoire style was elegant with plain simple designs and colours that flattered her beautiful appearance even more. I was starting to doubt that.
I tugged the loose top part of the dress up with my hands and said, "I'm going to look in the mirror."
I announced this before Victoire could turn her attention from Lily at the far side of the room.
"Be quick," Molly said not looking up from the notepad she had been scribbling profusely in ever since I stepped out of the dressing room.
The seamstress witch turned to question Victoire about some wedding thing when I hoisted my dress up (again) and made my way across to a mirror that was at the edge of the circle of mirrors. Everyone had their backs to me.
The dress was bad and there was nothing I could do about it. Complaining to Victoire or anyone besides Lily seemed like a bad idea. Lily was the bridesmaids only hope. Hopefully, her fashion magic could help.
I put my hands to my sides and huffed to myself, "It's only a dress."
Then my mind wandered to Scorpius, well back to where it had been. It was only a couple of seconds since I had last thought of him. Was he as mortified as I was about Lily's sudden appearance? And just about everything else she did within that relationship (what relationship?) changing five minutes?
I had peered around the shop for him on the platform, he wasn't in sight. I was worried that he had left. If he had left I would be more than disappointed at the thought and I would be more than ready to kick the mannequin standing nearby down. But maybe it would be a good thing if he left (and, of course, returned later).
I picked up the end of my dress and stared at my reflection in the mirror. My hair was still out of control, I had forgotten about that. I was wearing an oversized unflattering dress but I could also see about ten other things wrong when I thought of how Scorpius' eyes saw me. The oversized front teeth that in that moment looked about twice their oversized original size, just to name one.
I frowned at my reflection. I don't think like that. I don't care. Why do I suddenly care? Scorpius is my… a friend like… Abby and Jane, I never think about these things when I'm around them. In fact, they're non-existent.
My train of thoughts was suddenly jolted away from me when just the guy I was thinking about poked his head out from behind the mirror. I nearly jumped out of my skin.
He took a second to take in the dress and pulled a face at it.
"The closer you get to it the more horrible it is," Scorpius stated.
I crossed my arms over my chest and couldn't help but be offended. Even though if I was in his position I would've probably said a lot worse.
I turned into some Witch Weekly guru as I said in a proud voice,
"It's a Christmas wedding and it will inspire confidence. The colours are confident."
It made no sense to me as I listened to it coming out of my mouth. All I did was mimic Lily.
Scorpius snorted, but I wasn't sure what at, my tone of voice, the nonsense that came out of my mouth or the dress and me itself.
"You had a completely different opinion not long ago."
"Alright," I said deflated. "You're right. Dress and I are horrible."
Scorpius raised his eyebrows, "The dress is. You're great."
"What?" I said 'what' so abruptly that it came out as a squawk, a loud one.
Scorpius jumped back at the sudden change. He recovered quickly and shook his head at me.
I blushed and said in a normal voice, "I meant what."
Scorpius thought for a second before blinking heavily and grabbing my hand. It was unexpected and sent sparks across my skin. I dumbly stared down at it like I had never seen his hand before leaving him free to pull me behind the mirror without any objections. I tightened my grip on his hand. A whispering voice in the back of my mind made me realise that nearly every time I was with him I ended up holding his hand. But that didn't make this occasion any less unusual.
When I tightened my grip he tightened his own. And the whispering voice started a monologue about the softness of his hand and how it fitted with mine even though there was a vast different in size. It was goofy and repetitive but in that moment it captivated me.
Scorpius released my hand after what felt like an era. I, dumbstruck, still had my eyes firmly trained on it. I didn't care about what I looked like or the dress I was wearing. It didn't come to mind, my mind was quiet and still even with the monologue playing in the back of my mind.
"We can make this work."
"We?"
"Well, I."
"You're starting to sound like Lily."
"Turn around."
"What are you about to do?" I asked, immediately suspicious. He had led me blindly by the hand but turning my back to him so he could do unknown things was a more serious matter.
Scorpius was already working on me turning my back to him. He was trying to twist me around by my shoulders.
"It looks worse than it should because it isn't fully zipped up."
"What?" I said patting my back, twisting my arms at odd angles trying to find the zip. "I swear to merlin, it's supposed to be self-zipping!"
And without a word Scorpius twirled me around so my back was facing him and pulled my hands back to my sides. I tried to control my breathing. I was more aware of it than ever and my heart beat as I waited for his touch.
I couldn't decide whether to giggle madly, blush or do both at the same time. Instead, I stayed silent and waited. I could feel the tip of his thumb in between my shoulder blades as the zip moved up. I could feel his hand wobble as he zipped. It wasn't a clean, fast zip. It was as if he had never zipped anything up before. I suppressed the urge to shiver and move away from him. It felt… weird, overwhelmingly weird but it wasn't just me. It hung in the air between us, a funny awkwardness that was unavoidable and unstoppable.
"Anything else?" I asked my voice coming out as a murmur. The silence between us suddenly felt uncomfortably heavy. I turned to him expecting to see a smirk or Scorpius' normal resting face but was surprised when I saw his forehead crinkled in intense focus.
"It's better," He said just as quiet as my voice had been but slower. His eyebrows were slowly unjoining and his face was starting to relax again.
"Good?" I said, not meaning for it to come out as a question. I looked down at the dress and saw it was better. The top part no longer stuck out ridiculously (forgetting about the colour). Scorpius had improved it somewhat.
"It would be good if you got your hair out of your face."
He lifted his hands up to my face holding them in mid-air leaving plenty of time for me to flinch away or move my hair myself. I didn't do either of those things I looked up at him expectantly waiting for him to act. It wasn't like me to allow someone (especially Scorpius) to do something to me that I could have easily done. For some reason, I wanted him to do it. I wanted to see it happen.
After a safe wait of several seconds Scorpius' palms touch my temples and he scooped my hair into his hands. His fingers glided smoothly over the mass. His fingers didn't tangle in the curls. His hands finally came to halt and held my hair up at the back of my head loosely.
"I don't have a mirror."
"Trust me, you look good." He said and he let my hair fall back onto my shoulders.
"Okay, Scorpie, I trust you with all my heart," I grinned at him giving him another one of my playful nudges.
"Rosie-"
"Rose, come on." said the voice of Lily cutting through the moment like a knife through warm butter.
I turned to see Lily behind me peering out from in front of the mirror.
"Are you trying to get caught?!" Lily let out a sigh of exasperation and added. "Hello again, Scorpius."
"Hi." replied Scorpius weakly.
"Everyone's looking for you. Be glad that I'm the only one getting off their chair and looking for you." Lily continued. "You've been missing for like 12 years. I want to see the finished dress on you and the seamstress witch is getting impatient."
I turned back to Scorpius, "I got to go I'll be back in the minute."
Before Lily dragged me (once again) from the dark area behind the mirror away from Scorpius.
"That's nothing?" Lily whispered once we were heading back into the fitting area.
"How long were you there?" I asked growing redder by the second at that thought.
"About a second. Why?" Lily whispered excitedly. "What did you do?"
"Nothing. It's all nothing." I finished, standing back up on the platform.
Lily kept her eyes on me the entire time, well when she wasn't trying to change up the dress and add her own ideas/ improvements to the wedding.
I impatiently let the seamstress witch finish altering my dress and pretended to listen to the conversations about various wedding things and shoe fittings. I was more than happy to get out of the dress and back into my regular clothes that were simple, comfortable and all things the dress wasn't.
Which is why disgruntled me had no issue with going up to Victoire, asking to leave and adding in a spur of the moment lie about meeting my mom for ministry work.
Victoire didn't try very hard to convince me to stay. All I had done in the time I was there was delay and offer nothing useful. I thanked her and left before she could try to make me take Lily with me. Lily and Victoire were usually the best of cousins but ever since the wedding, their ideas have been clashing, not that Lily could see that. She could only see all the useful things (binder) and fun she was offering to the planning.
Scorpius wasn't very hard to find once I was back into the clothing part of the store and out of sight from the group. He was crouched from behind a rack of robes.
"Ready, Rosie?" He asked more than happy to get out of the stuffy store and back onto the streets of Diagon Alley.
"Ready, Scorpie."
We didn't make any plans. We ducked out of the store to the busy street of Diagon Alley. We walked far away from the store that felt like a dungeon before discussing what we could do.
"Nice to see you're still wearing my scarf." He started giving me a nudge with his elbow.
"Scorpius, why are you bringing that up again?" I said not bothering to defend myself this time. "It's a scarf, that's warm and cosy. Where do you want to go?"
"You're asking me?"
"No, I'm asking the pile of snow over there. Yes, you."
"I can't believe this. Rose Weasley actually asking me where I want to go."
"For Merlin's sake, Scorpius, I can easily take the floo home if that's what you want."
"Okay, then." Scorpius shrugged. "Since you are being so generous today. I will lead you."
Scorpius moved forward into the crowd of witches and wizards doing their Christmas shopping.
"Where?" I said hurrying after him. "It better not be Knockturn Alley or-"
"Or?"
"I don't know somewhere disgusting, illegal or designed to embarrass me."
We then came to an abrupt halt outside an option I did not consider. In the window was about twenty broomsticks of all shapes and sizes lined up and polished, shining under the warm glow of the lights in the shop.
Scorpius then suddenly burst out laughing, "The look on your face."
Then I realised I was pulling a face at the sight of the broomsticks.
"Ha, ha very funny." I tried to look normal.
"It is." He agreed wiping his eyes. "I wanted to see how you would react. I don't understand why you get so worked up about quidditch and broomsticks."
I sighed and folded my arms, "Do I have to remind you of the story Albus graciously told the whole of Slytherin?"
Scorpius thought for a second, "I almost forgot about that. Surely most of that is made up."
"If you're trying to get me to repeat it for your amusement I'm going to Flourish and Blotts."
"No, it's fine, maybe some other time. I'm getting a new broom for Christmas." He continued.
"Abby is too, a Thunderbolt something-something."
"The Thunderbolts are cheap plastic toys."
"And your one is so much better because?"
"It's the new limited edition Nimbus." He said proudly. I blinked my eyes blankly at him.
"That one." He clarified pointing at a broom that was the second shiniest to the gleaming one next to it.
"What about that one?" I pointed to the grander one next to it.
Scorpius sighed, "That's the new Firebolt. Fastest broom on earth. Every quidditch team wants them. There's a waiting list that is supposedly years long."
"All for a broomstick?" I said. "So why the Nimbus, not the Firebolt?"
Scorpius sighed once again, "To get the new Firebolt you would have to clear out your vault in Gringotts."
"And the waiting list is years long?"
"Supposedly," Scorpius replied. "The Nimbus will be fine. It will get me on the team."
"I thought you hated the Slytherin quidditch team I can't imagine why you would want to be on it."
"I love quidditch and I want to play for the team. All I need is a better broom, a bit more practise and I will be on it this time next year. You can change my scarf back to its normal colours and cheer me on in the stands."
I gave him a smile.
And he returned it with his own, "You can help me practise when we get back to Hogwarts."
"By cheering?"
"No, you can play chaser and I can play keeper."
I pulled another face, "Number one I can't fly and will never as long as I live. That's it."
"You can throw quaffles at me."
"As dangerous as that sounds, no thanks. Can't you bewitch them to hit you in the face instead?"
"You can at least sit on the broomstick with me," he said then added. "For moral support."
"Let's return to number one."
"But you'll be with me and I won't let you fall. Well, I won't let you fall if you stop dissing quidditch."
I was starting to feel bad about letting him down since he seemed sincere.
"Okay!" I said but before he could celebrate I added. "I will watch you, I suppose."
Scorpius looked happy enough with this, "And eventually, who knows. So Flourish and Blotts or what?"
"We're not going in?"
"I thought you hated the broom store and weren't in your wildest dreams going to buy a broom."
"I don't mind you telling me about quidditch or broomsticks," I said honestly. "As long as it doesn't lead to me getting on or getting one."
"Fine, Rosie," Scorpius said taking my arm and leading me into the store. "You asked for it."
We spent a long time in the quidditch supply store. Scorpius explained everything he knew about quidditch and different types of broomsticks. I had to admit, even though I didn't admit it in there, I had a nice time in the shop with Scorpius. It was warm in the shop but not to the extent of being stuffy like in the robes shop and the smell of broom polish wasn't as bad as I remembered, it was quite sweet.
He pointed to all the different brooms and gave me more than a background history on each product. The balls as well, even the polishes and clippers.
I made the odd comment and laughed when he said something funny or recited a quidditch story.
By the time we had made it out it was after lunch and the crowd in Diagon Alley had gotten thicker. The clouds up above were foggy and white. It looked like it was about to snow again.
"What now?" I asked shuddering and stepping closer to him. There was a sudden breeze of cold air when we stepped outside. All the warmth from the quidditch supply shop left my body.
"We could always go into Weasley's Wizard Wheezes and give your dad an awful shock," Scorpius said.
"That's not even funny. He'd use the killing charm on you before you got a foot in the door."
"I guess we have to stick to the opposite side of Diagon Alley then."
"Flourish and Blotts it is then," I said grabbing his wrist and pulling him along with me away from the quidditch shop.
It was a short way through the bustling crowd to Flourish and Blotts. The first couple of snowflakes had just fallen when I pulled Scorpius through the door.
"You think you know a lot about quidditch. Prepare to be bored out of your mind!" I teased.
I was more than happy to be back in Flourish and Blotts, it was packed with people. Through the air of perfume and sweat, I could still smell parchment, fresh and ageing. I wasn't worried about being seen with Scorpius as much as I should've been. After all, to a stranger's eyes, it could be mistaken for us being at the same place at the same time. But you couldn't say that when I was holding his wrist (sometimes accidently slipping into his hand) and leading him around the shop.
In the crowd of eager book buyers, no one cared about Scorpius and I. In the broomstick shop there had been a small crowd but no attention was paid to us.
I pointed out a ton of books describing what they were about. From books that I had read to books I wanted to read and some that were downright scandalous. Christmas songs on a record player played loudly on one of the tables of bestsellers over the noise of the shoppers.
"This is nice," I said with a smile taking a break from my pointing out random books in the less crowded section of fortune telling (what a coincidence).
Scorpius grinned at me, "It is. Slightly worse than being in the Library with you."
After another while and too many books to count we left and went back out into the streets to find it snowing heavily. Our next stop was to Eeylops Owl Emporium to get Andrew some much-needed treats. After almost getting my fingers bitten off by an owl that looked friendly we were back outside in the snow.
"What are we going to do next?" I asked. The snow was falling at a slower rate but Diagon Alley's cobblestone streets were painted white along with the tops of our heads. The warm orange light that emanated from the windows of the shops made everything feel warmer and more Christmas card like.
"We could either have a snowball fight or we could get ice cream?"
"Don't you dare, not in the middle of Diagon Alley," I warned backing against the wall of Eeylops Owl Emporium once a saw Scorpius making a big show pretending to reach down and pick up the snow. As much as I loved our snowball fights and was usually the one to start them this was really the worse place to put snow down his robes.
"Later then?"
"Later," I concluded suddenly realising I was starving. "Come on let's get ice cream."
"Let's go freeze our insides."
"You're the one who suggested ice cream."
"Because it's worth freezing our insides for."
"Well said."
Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour was still open despite the cold and was the only place the wizarding crowd wasn't drawn to. Scorpius and I sat inside with our ice creams knowing better than to chance our lives outside in the cold with ice cream. It was warm inside the parlour. There was only an old witch with her nose in the Daily Prophet licking an extra large scoop of blueberry flavoured ice cream in a cone.
"You didn't have to pay for mine," I said to him from behind my cone at our corner table. I wasn't used to a boy that was a friend or any friends paying for ice cream.
"I know I didn't have to, Rosie." He replied. "You said that about a thousand times already. You're making a fuss over nothing."
"Thank you, Scorpius."
"I don't mind you saying that a thousand times."
